Lesson in the Matter of Souls
by ScarletTigress
Summary: Sanada Genjiro Yukimura was the most hopelessly clueless person alive in all things having to do with romance, so when Date Masamune decided to take matter into his own hands, my Master was understandably overwhelmed. So it was that I, Sarutobi Sasuke, managed to find myself in the unenviable position as Yukimura's erstwhile sensei in the carnal arts, Kami help us all...
1. Chapter 1

**So, this is a plot bunny, like a really ferocious one that bit me months ago and held on tight. Originally, it was supposed to be a short story, but I think it's naïve at this point to think that there's anything short about it. I meant it to be a bit of a comedy, which is a big departure for me, as it writing in the third person. To those who read, thank you in advance and please review as this style of writing is totally new to me and I could seriously use the feedbacks. To any of my Peace readers who pick this up: Don't expect it to be anything like the Peace series, but hopefully still totally good. Sengoku Basara is an anime that borrows heavily from Japanese history and I feel it necessary to say here that I am writing in an alternate universe from both the anime and our own past, which should be okay since robot samurai don't actually exist either. That being said, I mean no disrespect to the spirits of the men whose names are echoed here and any resemblance this story may have to actual history is only coincidental. I am writing this for stress relief and fun and to try something new, not with much of any true intention, so if you like it please let me know! **

I will not say that I was unaware, because to write such a thing would be utterly untrue, but perhaps my misfortunes might have been avoided if I had considered the situation in a different way. I was certainly not tasked with avoiding the mess I eventually fell into and nothing in my previous experience could have prepared me for the fateful moment when my young Master unknowingly dragged me into the sensual intrigues of the Samurai caste. In retrospect, I should have been kinder to Kasuga since her plight soon became my own and I was no more equipped to avoid it than she had been. A love affair with one's Lord may seem appealing to some, even romantic perhaps, but the truth is that such a relationship has terrible consequences. We ninja exist in a separate world from the Samurai and even if we take what the Lords are willing to spend for their own success, our people remain aloof. Separation, distance, between those who serve and their masters is essential in a society where only the strongest are recognized. I, Sasuke Sarutobi, came too close to the flame of the warrior caste and was burned for my indiscretions. Ninja believe that to serve a man is natural, so long as compensation is freely rendered. We are not vassals, we are not pets, we are independent in our own right and do not bend knee to the Samurai kings unless there is gold on the ground. This is the fundamental law the governs all nin and allows us to survive the savagery of our times. This is the law that I broke.

I bent my knee and everything else to my master without gold or silver offered in return, turning my back upon the teachings of my people, on everything that the ninja hold to be truths. I bent for him in every way imaginable and some not, bent until I was no longer the person I had been before, until I was no longer ninja. I have suffered, suffered far more than I ever deserved and the most damnable thing about it is that I am not sure if, given the option, I would have even chosen to avoid the pain. Love is truly an awful thing and love in an age of warfare even worse than the condition under other circumstances. I maintain, even now, that the lessons were never my idea and that I did everything in my power to avoid them. I was caught, as so many people are, in the web of fate and circumstance that conspires to make all of us totally miserable. Why I did not choose as a boy to offer my services to Maeda, or Chokosabe, or anyone, _anyone_ other than Takeda, I will never know. Perhaps I am cursed, the Samurai believe that most of my kind are, and the lives of ninja are never easy. So when I say that our lessons were not in the matter of things or even of men, it is simply the truth as I am able to understand it. If they were lessons in anything, it would be in the nature of my own soul and of his, but the wisdom we gleaned is still some mystery to me. So it is that I write and remember and try to understand…

OoOoOoO

By the time he was 17 years old, it was completely obvious to everyone that my young Master, Sanada Genjiro Yukimura, was more ignorant of the physical aspect of love than even the most cloistered of maidens. Perhaps the reason was merely a product of the era in which we lived. Men fought young and died young and few thought deeply upon matters of romance. Ours was a world perpetually at war in a time when a person's hopes and dreams were made upon the battle field, a time when clever ninja like myself could become rich upon the noble aspirations of Samurai kings. Some ninja even became kings of a sort in their own right and I confess such a thing was my ambition as well. Takeda paid me well and I served him in all ways required of me, which included serving Master Yukimura as his proxy when the situation called for it. I had known my Master since he was a little child and, naturally, came to care for him as the years went by. We were somewhat close and so, of course, I noticed that at the age of 19 winters, the Tiger Cub of Kai knew absolutely_ nothing _of human sexuality. His ignorance was so astounding that even I, Sarutobi Sasuke, began to feel a bit concerned.

It was a small worry, true, in the greater scheme of our campaigns and battles, but my Master's inexperience pertained not only to the bodies of others, but also to his _own_. I know he felt the urges of his maturing flesh as other boys did, but he channeled the energy into combat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. My Master thought of his body rather distantly and only when he was injured, it was a vessel for the might of his spirit and nothing more. When my Master was thirteen, some of the other men invited him to sit with them as they drank and joked about their sexual exploits, but my Master reacted rather badly to the gesture. He scolded them harshly for speaking of women so callously and returned to the practice of his weapons in a righteous fury that leveled an entire forest. Confused, our men apologized and never spoke of such things in his presence again. My Master was a noble person and he took the matter of a man's honor very seriously, most would say too seriously, and he believed the discussion of a woman's body wholly inappropriate in any setting. For these reasons, he never learned the secrets of sex from his fellows as many young men do and everyone feared enlightening him. To say he was a virgin would have been the understatement of an age.

Truly, the responsibility for his education should have then fallen to Lord Takeda Shingen as he was Yukimura's mentor and sensei in all matters. The oddity of it was that Shingen _did_ attempt to instruct him, but his efforts were all in vain. My Lord Shingen gave Yukimura many examples of art and poetry that should have clearly conveyed to him the idea that men and women occasionally do something other than talk behind closed doors. I regret to say that my Master took the works rather literally, memorized lots of poetry about bulls and flowers, invented a few rather novel wrestling holds, and pondered the pieces without actually making the connection. As any good sensei would, Lord Shingen recognized the problem and hired a courtesan to instruct my Master in all matters carnal. The woman, in her defense, performed admirably and it was not her fault that my Master ended up learning a very lovely tea ceremony and then hiding under the parapets of Takeda castle in tears for the rest of the evening. Yukimura was uncomfortable around women anyway and the girl's patience was not infinite. After several hours of pleasant conversation that led absolutely no where the courtesan pulled him onto a futon and commanded him, in no uncertain terms, to ravish her. My Master refused her out of nerves, blamed himself for cruelly bruising her feelings, and came away from the experience with an enduring fear of women in general and courtesans in particular. He grew to be 19 without ever so much as touching a girl's hand or exchanging a heated look and Lord Shingen came to be occupied with matters far more pressing than his pupil's virginity.

I confess that I really didn't consider my Master's funny little problem to be anything too immediate myself. After all, someday my Master would marry and his wife would take the time and effort necessary to indoctrinate him in the matter of physical love, so what was to worry about? He would surely be a kind and devoted husband, if he even lived that long, and there was no point in fretting over details until the wedding night anyway. Samurai, however, have many strange customs foreign to my own people and it came to be that my young Master was caught in one such practice. Given the boy's history, I think anyone can appreciate why I was nearly in a panic the night Date Masamune, the Dragon Lord of Oshu, took my Master to his bed.

It was during the full moon festival in early autumn and all the lanterns had been lit for the festivities. The Kingdoms Oshu and Kai had enjoyed a fragile tolerance of one another since the fall of the Demon King and Lord Shingen was invited to attend the festival in Oshu as a gesture of goodwill. The whole thing was largely political, a kind of backward sort of thanks offered for the refuge given to Date's troops during the campaign. I have no doubt that Katakura was the mastermind behind all of it since I have never known Date to have much talent for diplomacy beyond that done with the sword. My Lord Shingen attended the festival readily, dressed in all his finery, with Yukimura by his side as was fitting. People drank and sang and sometime a bit past midnight, I noticed that Date and Yukimura were sitting rather closely and very deep in their cups. The two of them had been deeply engaged in conversation for the better part of three hours and practically leaning on one another as they talked, intense and utterly focused.

As I watched, Date brushed his fingers over my Master's jaw and whispered something in his ear, before smirking at him with the serpentine ferocity that had earned him the name Dragon. Date's Right Eye and most favored vassal, Kojuuro Katakura, had been watching the exchange with far more care and attention than I had and yet he made no move to halt the two young noblemen and they gripped each other and slipped away from the festivities. That was odd. Usually Katakura made it his personal mission in life to prevent Date Masamune from embarrassing himself. The man had practically raised the Lord of Oshu and took Masamune's indiscretions very personally.

I was tempted to shrug it off and inform Lord Shingen later. After all, I really thought that the two of them were going to slip away to spar since each of them was far more addicted to combat than any pleasure a mere party could offer. Still, Kojuuro Katakura's expression gave me pause and enticed me to follow Date's favored subordinate in case there might be foul play. Oshu might have currently been an ally, but just a few short seasons ago Kai had waged war with Date's army and the conflict had might have left a few bitter wounds unclosed. My Master was a difficult person to kill on any field of combat, but even the finest warrior's aren't immune from a knife in the back.

To my utter shock, Kojuuro did not go to the training fields to supervise his own young master and temper his ferocity, but instead slunk deep into Date's castle to sit protectively in front of the young Dragon's bedroom door. Perplexed, I dashed outside and found a tree with a decent view into Date's window, worrying that my Master might be in far more danger than I had originally surmised. My worst fears were soon confirmed as Date and Yukimura entered the room from a well hidden passage behind a large golden screen and the Dragon immediately set to ravishing my Master. They embraced awkwardly, and the gesture was rough and filled with the same kind of manic violence as they expressed when fighting. I watched them carefully, an arrow cocked hard in my bow and already aimed at Date's heart. As I watched the Lord of Oshu strip my Master of his kimono and trail his hands over Yukimura's inexperienced flesh, I pulled the bow taught and prepared to fire. Date lathed his tongue over Yukimura's belly, coiling my Master's long tail of sepia hair around his fingers. By the Gods, he meant to do it! They touched again, more slowly this time and I could tell that Yukimura was not being coerced against his will, but I kept the arrow in place anyway.

Perhaps I should have known better, after all it had been a part of _my_ education. All ninja were taught of the strange things that Samurai did with and to each other for the sake of their unspoken passion. I had learned of such practices, at least in the academic sense, with the other ninja in my age group through our training, in case we were ever called upon to exploit a situation of that kind. I even received rudimentary seduction training before my sensei decided that I lacked the proper disposition for such work, even if I did have the looks, and dismissed me. Samurai engaged in the bizarre practice of anal sex, achieving penetration with the aid of lubricants, and rarely for reasons of humiliation or physical domination. Unlike certain pirates who practiced sodomy for the fear and shame the act brought to their enemies, as well as the rather notable lack of women on the open ocean, the Samurai governed their dalliances as they did everything else: with honor. While the love that the warrior lords offered to each other was by no means the same as the kind given to their wives, it was still _love_, and by all accounts the act was pleasurable to both parties involved. The Samurai loved each other and killed each other, but such was the contradiction of their nature.

Even if the practice was supposedly secret, I had read enough to know at least how it might work and that it happened. Thankfully, I had never been called upon to engage in the act myself, though I had spoken at length with ninja who had. They described the thing as uncomfortable and terribly intimate, more so than loving a woman, but nothing like the brutality enjoyed by some of the pirate kings. So I was not ignorant, though I sometimes wish I had been. I knew that the samurai sometimes took each other sexually, that such encounters were as much a part of the secret code of their society as kunai were of ours. My own Lord, Takeda Shingen, had lain with Kenshin when the Lord of Echigo was barely more than a boy and their intimacy colored their dealings with one another for all the years following. Regardless, I nearly fell out of my tree when Date took one of my Master's nipples into his mouth and made his intentions clear.

The One-Eyed Dragon was as much a ruffian as an aristocrat can be without permanently losing their title and NOT the kind of partner I had hoped my Master might have for his first tryst. The Dragon pulled the kimono from my Master's shoulders, pulling Yukimura roughly into his lap and I nearly let fly. The only reason I stayed my hand and spared the young Lord's life was because of how desperately my own Master clung to him. How he buried his face against the other man's throat, how he opened his mouth readily for Date's barbarian kisses. No, I did not kill him, but the Dragon of Oshu was rough in both his speech and his fighting and I worried. My Master was utterly unprepared for something like this and I didn't want him to be hurt. It wasn't like being hurt on the battlefield. My arms ached as I watched, held my arrow, and tried to decide what in the hell I was supposed to do. I worried. I worried so much that I nearly leapt out of that tree and wrenched the two of them apart, diplomacy be damned.

Looking back, I really shouldn't have been so concerned. Date was no more experienced than my own Master, even if he was infinitely more well-read. He at least had a decent idea about the mechanics of the business, if none of the finesse, and he showed himself to be a far more generous lover than anyone would have imagined. Date kissed Yukimura's cheeks, throat, and chest, even copying that bizarre habit the Western missionaries have of kissing the lips, slipping his tongue into my Master's mouth. Despite Date's rather disturbing barbarian habits, Yukimura seemed to enjoy the love play, touching the Dragon with enthusiasm if not skill. They fumbled with each other like a pair of yearling stags who've managed to get stuck in one another's antlers, fierce and far too eager, and it's a miracle no one ended up bleeding through sheer carelessness. My Master shrieked as Date touched his most intimate body, but with the roaring of the party I doubt anyone other than Katakuro and myself were able to hear him.

Date was slow and considerate, if not particularly talented, and on the whole the act was almost sweet. Their lovemaking, such as it was, reached its conclusion barely an hour later, Yukimura having released as soon as the Oshu lord entered him and Date following a few thrusts later. The two of them fell asleep in one another's arms, mumbling sweet nothings about swords and death no doubt, and slept deeply the rest of the night. I did not fall out of the tree, Kojuuro did not have to make up any clever lies and no one died.

My Master had finally managed to lose his virginity and it hadn't even taken too much alcohol. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and laughed quietly to myself for far longer than they had actually spent having sex. No explosions, no violence and barely any trauma. I certainly couldn't have hoped for better in a coupling between the Tiger Cub of Kai and the One Eyed Dragon of Oshu even if I'd had the luxury to try. Kojuuro slept outside Date's door that night and I imagine he was just as relieved as I was that Date had managed to take such a fierce lover without botching the thing irretrievably. I watched the sunrise, laughing madly to myself and wondering if I should inform Lord Shingen that his pupil had been thoroughly, if artlessly, deflowered by his much beloved rival. It was almost perfect, actually, and I was happy for my Master even if I found the idea behind the relationship rather strange. Samurai and their fierce love affairs with one another were odd anyway, but loving both life and death as dearly as they did is bound to make men peculiar in more ways than one. If the whole business could have been left at that, perhaps I might have been spared. Fate is a strange thing.

OoOoOoO

The following day my Master approached me with a huge smile on his face, cheeks flushed and golden brown eyes filled with fire. I bowed and smiled as well, hoping to stem his enthusiasm quickly so I might be able to steal a few hours of sleep before we returned to Kai.

"Sasuke! I have had the most enlightening experience! Last night it was as if the heavens opened up before me and swallowed me in their sacred fires, piercing the very substance of my soul with a revelation my unworthy eyes could scarcely comprehend! I am truly changed!" He gushed.

"Hmm, sounds exciting." I yawned.

"Excitement! Sasuke there are no words for such excitement! Such exquisite union of flesh and spirit, our bodies like a single beast with far too many teeth…!" He exclaimed, practically bouncing.

"That good, huh? I never would have thought Date Masamune would…"

"Date! He was magnificent! He truly is the dragon of his name sake and if one were to have told me how powerfully a mere man might have wrapped his dragon coils around me, how he could have melted my spirit with his flames…" Yukimura went on, obviously totally besotted.

"Yep, he was pretty good." I agreed, rubbing my eyes.

"It was like the heady joy of combat, as hot and glorious as any battle I have ever fought! Better! Even the sweetness of an enemy's defeat is paltry by comparison! Better than anything I have ever known!"

"It usually is." I sighed.

"He is truly powerful and even in memory the feel of him, of his very gaze, scalds my soul! He heated me like metal in the forge…his hands, his hips, by Kami his…his _mouth_!" Yukimura gushed, far too loudly in my opinion.

"I'm glad his barbarian habits did not offend you, Master." I chuckled, putting my hand lightly over his lips to quiet him a bit.

"What offense could I complain of! If anything, his skill makes my own failure all the more unbearable!" The boy wailed.

"Wait, what failure?" I asked, wondering if I had somehow missed something between one thought and the next in the moment while I was yawning.

"The Lord of Oshu deserves more than the rushed and awkward coupling I so ignorantly forced upon him last night! I was like a foal newly born and trying to stand while he…he knew everything!"

"Master, I don't really think you forced him to do anything and I assure you that he doesn't know everything…" I laughed, utterly mystified by his reaction.

"You don't understand! I am so terribly ashamed Sasuke! He wants me, wants to meet with me again and yet how can I ever face him after such a tremendous failure!" Yukimura moaned.

"Master, I know what occurred and I can tell you truthfully that you did perfectly well." I said at last, sighing.

My Master blinked at me a moment, golden brown eyes huge and filled with confusion, before breaking into a wide grin once again. I was surprised and quite unnerved by his reaction, after all most people do not like being watched while in the intimate embrace of another. Yukimura laughed aloud and pulled me into a rough hug.

"You watched us, didn't you, Sasuke!" He whispered jubilantly in my ear.

"I was concerned that there might be foul play…"

"You are truly the finest of all ninja!" He bellowed, lifting me off of the floor in a bone cracking embrace.

"Master! Put me down!" I gasped as my vertebrae shifted ominiously.

"You saw and so you know! You know everything!" He shouted.

"Yes! I do! Believe me when I tell you that the act went well and that the dragon enjoyed himself thoroughly." I gasped, struggling to escape his grip.

"Even so, he has challenged me, in matters most intimate, to reciprocate next that we meet." Yukimura said, suddenly serious as he set me down once more.

"Reciprocate?"

"Yes. _Reciprocate_." My Master said, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

Apparently the One-Eyed Dragon of Oshu wanted to be on the receiving end of the experience in his next tryst with Yukimura, reversing their roles and putting my Master in control. Such a gesture was likely more a statement of mutual respect than an actual challenge, but there was no way Yukimura would see the invitation that way. As far as he was concerned, his rival had laid a battle plan onto the table and then asked if he was able. There was also the possibility that Date was curious. The sentiment was peculiar and I certainly could not imagine wanting to be penetrated by another man under any circumstance, but then again Date was an odd boy on all counts.

"Well…um…just copy his example I suppose." I supplied, shrugging.

"That's ridiculous! Would you have me bumble through something so terribly important without as much as a beacon to guide my actions and no sensei to direct me? Unthinkable! My shame would increase a thousand fold and it is unbearable already! Such a thing requires skill Sasuke, knowledge! What if I angered him and we became enemies?" Yukimura shouted.

"My Master, you already _are_ enemies." I stated, crossing my arms.

"We share a noble rivalry, true, but I could never live if Date harbored true hatred for me! How could I even engage him in fitting combat, knowing that his malice was due to my own idiocy? What if I hurt him!?" Yumikura wailed, obviously upset.

"My Lord, the Dragon of Oshu is not a man easily hurt…" I sighed, one finger stuck deep in my ear through sheer reflex, soothing my tender hearing from the assault of his voice.

"Please Sasuke! You must help me! I cannot bear the shame of disappointing him when next we meet!" Yukimura shouted, nearly hysterical.

"Master! Get a hold of yourself! Someone will hear!" I snapped.

"Sasuke, you must teach me! Please be my sensei!" Yukimura shouted, throwing himself into an abject bow at my feet.

"Master! Stand up! Before someone sees you!" I hissed, mortified by the undignified display Yukimura was making of himself.

"But Sasuke, I have no recourse!" He moaned, tears beginning to gather in the edges of my Master's ever expressive eyes.

"Master, these skills are much like the sword and best learned with practice." I said.

Surely it was the best advice that I could easily give him and, though I would learn to regret it in the future, I still stand beside my statement. Most people learn the art of sex with their lovers or wives, exploring the other person's unique preferences, experimenting and learning together as is only natural. Additionally, counseling my young Master to practice would surely bring greater pleasure to both him and to Date, while allaying Yukimura's fears.

"Practice! Yes! That is indeed wise!" My Master shouted, striking his fist into his own palm enthusiastically.

"Yes, well, have fun." I yawned and turned to leave.

"But Sasuke! We leave for Kai in only a few hours time!" Yukimura wailed as if the time had only just occurred to him.

"Yes, and some of us wish to sleep a while before that happens…" I groaned.

"There is not enough time to practice!" He hissed, looking at me intently.

"Master, there will be plenty of time in the future…"

"No, Sasuke, no! That is not so! When next we meet…"

"What?" I asked, utterly mystified.

Yukimura sighed heavily and looked away, his face suddenly far more still and tight than I ever remember seeing him before. He bit his lip, choosing his words carefully, and I moved to kneel before him as he struggled. That is the luxury of a ninja, or any servant I suppose, to simply sit and wait while those who must make the decisions about things do so.

"The next time we meet could very well be my only chance to love him again, if the gods even grant me that and if we both survive that long. Things change so quickly and this peace we have… I cannot be foolish enough to think it will last…" Yukimura whispered, eyes fastened on some distant image visible only to him.

"Oh. Yes Master, I suppose that may be." I replied, suddenly ashamed of the flippant way I had treated him.

"I want the next time we meet to be…I want to be better, for him and for both of us really. I never feel like I have enough time…" He sighed.

"Master, I have never heard you speak this way before." I noted, taken aback.

"I was never afraid of dying before, but if I die without loving Date again…I think I would be very unhappy." He whispered.

There it was. My Master, the boy who had charged into battle without reservation since he was twelve, who commanded armies, who slew the most renowned swordsmen of our era, was afraid. He was finally forced to face his own mortality and the revelation had not happened in the steel jaws of the wars, but in the arms of a lover. I sighed. What a perfectly miserable time for Yukimura to decide to be an adult, I thought, rubbing my head and trying to formulate a reply that would sound somewhat reasonable.

"I understand your fear, Master…" I began softly.

"So you see, then! You understand now why I need your help!" He whined.

"Why me?!" I groaned.

"Well, because, it's you…"

"Master, not to be obtuse, but what does that even mean?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Well…Who else would I ask?" He asked, blinking like a fawn in the sunlight.

I honestly had no idea. Lord Shingen had already given the matter his best effort and teaching Yukimura about intimacy the way some Lords taught their students…well, I could not really picture either of them surviving the experience. Lord Shingen was a great teacher and he loved Yukimura very much, but the nature of their relationship did not lend itself terribly well to sex. That particular kind of education is best left to someone unlikely to knock you through the wall for being dense. I winced just thinking about it.

"No one I suppose." I muttered sullenly after several beats of painful silence.

"So you'll do it? You'll be my sensei?"

"If I must." I sighed.

"Thank you Sasuke! Thank you! I am honored!" He shouted, clapping his hand over his heart.

"Ugh…This is a very bad idea." I groaned.

"Sasuke! Don't be so melancholy! What could happen?" He asked brightly and I felt the Takeda army walk over my grave.

OoOoOoO

Some say that the definition of insanity is to do that same thing, time and time again, and expect a different result, but frankly I had hoped that the outcome might have been better. I procured Yukimura a large number of books from several countries, all with very fine illustrations and told him to use them for reference. My Master, ever the willing student, sat beneath the cherry tree in which I was resting and immersed himself in the resources. He was reading carefully and I was nearly drowsing, but only a few minutes had passed before the problems with this approach became painfully clear.

"Sasuke…?"

"Hmm?"

"I can't read this. It isn't in Japanese." Yukimura noted.

"You don't have to read it, just look at the pictures. It's the Kama Sutra, it's in Hindi. The pirate I bought it from said that it was immensely helpful." I yawned and a few more moments passed.

"Sasuke…?"

"What?"

"All the pictures are of men and women." Yukimura stated, pointing as if I had missed it.

"I know. Extrapolate."

"Well…I guess…" He muttered.

A few blissfully peaceful minutes passed and the cherry tree drifted a bit in the breeze. I was just drifting off again, warm in the afternoon sun and still exhausted from my last mission, when I heard my Master gasp. I smirked and hoped he had seen something that he liked. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky.

"Sasuke! Come down here!" He hissed.

"What's the matter?" I asked, poking my head down through the foliage.

"Date and I cannot do THAT." He snarled, pointing to the offending painting.

I took the book and squinted at it only to decide after several moments that I was holding it upside down. I flipped the book, but that barely helped. The position was impossible unless both parties were contortionists and even then it would have been ambitious to say the least.

"That one's a little…advanced. Look for others." I said, handing it back.

"I don't understand how I am supposed learn anything from this!" He groaned, cradling his head in his hands.

"Don't give up so easily! Just keep reading until you find something that you like." I suggested, smiling.

"Alright." He grumbled.

I sighed and wondered idly about Kasuga. Winter was coming and all ninja were required to report to their home villages on the longest night in order to receive news and celebrate the passing of another year. Kasuga would likely spend the holiday sitting at Kenshin's feet, her master totally unaware that anything important should be happening at all. Even though he loved her, even though he treated her better than his own wife, the Lord barely knew anything about her. She was not some noble lady to be kept in a gilded cage and covered in silks and yet he did keep her, despite the sin of it, he kept her tethered to his love like a falcon tied to a hunter's hand. She had been sent to kill Kenshin and ended up sleeping with the man instead, an act that placed her firmly on the kill list for her village and many of the others as well. If Kenshin had been even a fraction less feared than he was, the woman would have been taken and punished long ago for her crimes. I glanced down at my young Master, frowning at his erotic paintings, and felt a bit cold despite the softness of the weather. I was too fond of him, even then.

"Sasuke…"

"What?" I asked, forcing myself not to groan as my comfortably drifting mind was pulled awake once again.

"You said to look until I found something that I like…"

"Yes…" I replied, bemused.

"Well, what do you mean by that exactly?" He asked.

"Master, in things like this, the best thing to do is to start with what _you_ like. If you like it, Date will probably like it too." I explained, yawning.

"Well…I like poetry?" Yukimura offered, blushing.

"No, not poetry. What you like…um…physically." I said, gesturing vaguely.

"Physically?" He asked, blinking in confusion.

"Yes, what feels good to you physically. Do whatever feels good to you to _him_." I said, a bit irately.

"Well, I like hot sake, that feels good it its cold outside. I like exercise too…" Yukimura said, smiling.

"Well…exercise with him, I'm sure you'll have fun…"

"Sasuke, how does exercise have anything to do with this? I exercise seven hours a day and it certainly never prepared me for the exquisite ecstasy, the divine sensuality…" Yukimura began, already heading for another long narrative of Date's sexual prowess.

"No, no, no! You've misunderstood. I mean what you like to do to _yourself!"_ I huffed, interrupting him.

"Do…to myself?" Yukimura asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

"Yes, what you do to yourself for pleasure. What you do alone, late at night…" I hinted.

"Sasuke, I'm sleeping late at night just like everyone else." Yukimura said, crossing his arms, mutinous brown eyes tipped up to meet my gaze through the branches.

"What you do when you _can't_ sleep." I practically snarled.

"Well…I practice, how is that relevant?" He shrugged, looking totally confused.

"You never do…anything else?" I asked, praying, praying to all the gods that he wasn't _that _innocent.

"No, it's too dark to read…"

"Master, don't you ever…um…do anything…do anything to yourself to find…um…release?" I asked, as delicately as possible.

"Release from what? Sasuke, you're being cryptic! What do you mean?" He asked, tossing the book aside.

Sighing, I slid from my comfortable perch in the cherry tree to crouch beside him. Blushing, a bit ashamed, my Master picked up the foreign book again and gently brushed the grass off of the leather cover. I sat beside him, musing for a moment, trying to decide exactly how I wanted to explain the idea of masturbation to him. No one had ever told _me_ about the act of self-pleasuring, no one had needed to, but Yukimura had a rather different perspective on life in general than most people. Really, I should not have been surprised that he knew nothing of his own body. He barely even noticed when he was bleeding…

"Well…many people like to touch themselves in the same places that a lover would. It feels good and can be a good way to learn too, a bit like practicing the form of a martial stance or throw without a partner." I said, rather pleased with myself that I had managed to find some way to relate the thing to martial arts.

"That seems like it might be…awkward." Yukimura whispered shyly.

"No, it's quite natural."

"So, I touch…um…myself…where Date touched me and try to learn what feels the best?" He asked, wincing and looking panicked.

"Yes! Exactly!" I exclaimed, grinning and trying not to sound too relieved.

"Well…If you think it's a good idea…"

"Of course it is! Like I said, the best way to learn is to practice, ne?" I winked jovially.

"I…suppose…" Yukimura hedged, obviously a bit upset.

"Why don't you try it and see?" I suggested, smiling and escaping back up into my tree before the conversation could go any further.

OoOoOoO

He did try, I have no doubt of that, but I should have known that something as utterly cursed to total disaster as Sanada Yukimura's sexual education could never have been so easily dealt with. I was called away for several days following our first lesson, much to my relief, and I hoped that in that time he might have come to some sort of revelation. He would surely know himself better and perhaps, I thought foolishly, he might have even progressed to a stage where he no longer required my guidance.

This was not the case. In fact, if the good folk of Kai ever learn that Yukimura's rampage was due to my suggestion, I have no doubt that they will promptly have me hanged. My Master was nearly a force of nature unto himself anyway and, of course, any force of nature spiraling out of control is generally considered to be some kind of cataclysm. My ninja and I left and my Master spent the next several night engrossed in a competition with himself that, quite literally, shook the very foundations of everyone in the kingdom. That all of Takeda castle felt the force of my Master's frustration was no small thing in itself, but that was expected and both our servants and soldiers had grown accustomed to the power of his moods. For the rest of the populace, however, the days Yukimura spent trying to experiment by himself were something akin to a hurricane. Structures were destroyed, the land changed and at the end of it everyone just felt grateful to be alive. In retrospect, it was only because of Lord Shingen's unerring intuition that the kingdom managed to survive it at all.

The problem was that while I had left Yukimura with an idea of how to go about his explorations, I had not given any forethought to the problems presented by such a task. My Master managed the arousal part of the exercise most admirably, but, for whatever reason, he could not seem to manage to _release_ aspect of the maneuver. Yukimura was a passionate person and so the mere thought of Date coupled with a shy touch was enough to fill him with ardor, but moving on from there was a bit beyond him. I had been confident that his natural human instincts would finally kick in and that his own body might finish the rest of his education for me. Why I ever thought the Yukimura even_ had _human instincts only serves to show that I did not know him nearly as well as I thought. No human being can be knocked through walls with the regularity that my Master was and expect to live and yet I thought he might simply fumble through the art of masturbation on feel alone like the rest of humanity. Whatever my Master is, fey or god, expecting him to act like a human being was nothing less than pure idiocy.

A late night caress and a few colorful fantasies later Master found himself fully aroused for the first time and too shy and inexperienced to do much of anything about it. Being the utter martial perfectionist that he is, Yukimura's failure only made him try more aggressively, which, as any normal person knows, is an awful idea. As his sexual frustration built and grew more intolerable and the days passed, the balance of the universe, by necessity, dictated that other things must fall.

The other ninja in house Takeda's employ later informed me that by the second day of my absence, Yukimura came to be wholly consumed by some mysteriously violent hatred of all inanimate objects. First, he smashed piles of firewood into splinters, tore the stables to pieces looking for his saddle and took out an entire block of tea-houses, unintentionally, while trying to scare off an overzealous peddler. Feeling worse the following morning, my Master somehow altered the course of the local river, reduced the Takeda marketplace to veritable rubble and the crushed his favorite dojo into kindling. Despite the fact that none of this destruction was in any way malicious, the people expressed a strong desire for Yukimura to take both his strength and his moods someplace they might be less damaging to both the castle and the economy. Ever kind-hearted, my Master then attempted to spare the towns people and direct his frustration towards more appropriate targets. He destroyed all of the stone training manikins, tore dead-wood stumps out of the ground with his bare hands and leveled several large boulders at the base of the mountains into gravel as well. The demolition was less public, but no less impressive, and failed to soothe my Master in any way. I hate to think about what might have happened to the local geography if Yukimura had been allowed to continue for the entirety of my absence.

Thankfully for the residents of Kai, Lord Shingen recognized his student's unhappiness and put him through a rigorous training routine that would have surely killed a normal man. His frustration finally redirected onto the familiar goal of warrior prowess, Yukimura proceeded to train for three days without sleeping and eventually calmed himself enough to walk about the castle without smashing everything in sight. By the time I returned, Yukimura had collected some of his composure and was nearly speaking in entire sentences which, I gather, was a marked improvement from his previous state. I was told, in no uncertain terms, by the guards at the castle gate that Yukimura had ordered me to report to him at once as soon as I arrived.

Naïve to the end, I shrugged and turned towards the main reception hall only to be vigorously redirected to my Master's private chambers. Apparently, Lord Shingen had dismissed him from the Takeda court until whatever ailed him subsided enough to spare the furniture. I really should have guessed that something was amiss when the two guards, giggling with relief, half carried me to Yukimura's quarters and shoved me into the reception area before fleeing shamelessly back to the gatehouse. My Master was waiting for me, looking sleepless and slightly insane, the Kama Sutra still sitting in his lap like an omen.

"Sasuke! Thank Kami! Help me!" My Master shouted before I had even finished kneeling before him.

"Help you? With what?" I asked, confused.

"With…with…with this terrible BURNING! Can't sleep! Can't eat! Touch only makes it worse! I feel like I am in the midst of battle all the time!" He practically spat.

"Oh." I replied sheepishly.

"You are my sensei in this, you must know some way…" He began, waving a hand in the air urgently, words apparently requiring too much focus.

"Perhaps I should fetch some tea to help you relax…" I offered, blushing and feeling slightly nauseas.

"I don't WANT to relax Sasuke! I want…I want…I don't even _know_ what I want!" He moaned.

"Master, I understand that you are frustrated…"

"FRUSTRATED! Sasuke, this is HELL!" He practically shrieked.

"…But I have a few pressing responsibilities first." I finished firmly.

"No! Surely it is nothing crucial! I need you here!" He pleaded, looking panicked.

"Master, I must report to Lord Shingen and then…" I argued, bowing once and turning to stand.

Yukimura lunged off the cushion where he had been sitting and grabbed me tightly around the waist. Yelping, I tried to turn and only succeeded in tripping over his elbow and landing in a graceless heap against him. We scuffled about a bit as I tried to stand and Yukimura tried to kneel without letting go of me until both of us managed to make it into a more or less upright position.

"Lord Shingen is expecting me!" I snapped.

"But…_Sasuke_!" He wailed.

"Master! I promise you that I will return in a few minutes and…and we…we will figure this out." I said, blushing hard and suddenly acutely aware of how tightly he was holding me.

"I've failed…" He cried looking a mere heartbeat away from actual tears.

"This is not a failure, its…well…an obstacle." I finished, feeling foolish and also dizzy.

What the situation was, in actuality, was a total catastrophe. I had no idea what to do, much less what to say, and Yukimura had never been the most patient of people to begin with even when he wasn't desperately close to full blown hysteria. Lord Shingen was on the other side of the castle and, even if I could manage to summon him, he was just as likely to let my Master crush the life out of me as a lesson for being stupid as he was to actually intervene. I have never been afraid of my Master, but one thing that anyone in Kai knows about Sanada Genjiro Yukimura was that he had next to no conception of his own strength.

"Master, please…You shouldn't hold me this way…" I hissed, trying to unlock the death-grip he had on my waist.

"I don't know what to do!"

"First: Let me go. Second: Get a grip on yourself!" I snapped, flicking him hard in the forehead with the sharp edges of my steel-girded gauntlets.

"Sasuke!"

"NOW!" I roared using a tone I had never once turned against him before.

Yukimura took a deep breath and nodded, releasing his hands from around me with what was obvious effort, and scooting a short distance away to sit in a disconsolate heap on the floor. I had never seen him so panicked and I felt ashamed of my own actions as well. Why the gods cursed me to be such a magnificent assassin and such a miserably deficient friend is only one of the great mysteries of my life. I could halt wars single handedly and topple kingdoms, but I could not seem to manage one lonely, passionate teenager who trusted me with the most intimate details of his life. I bowed to him again and Yukimura looked at me with shame in his eyes as well, before turning to stare murderously at his spears leaning against the wall. Oh, how I wanted to say something! Anything!

Instead, I smoothed my hair and stood, resolving to make this the most concise report I had ever delivered to Lord Shingenin my life. My hands were shaking and I could not tell if it was because I was angry with myself or anxious or simply terrified. After spending an infinite heartbeat trying regain my own composure, I moved from the room and shut the door softly behind me. A few of my own ninja were waiting in the shadows of the hall, looking both furtive and concerned, a terrible combination whenever my kind are concerned. Already I had crossed a very serious line, becoming more than merely a servant to Yukimura and my brethren were already suspicious of my behavior. I flashed them what I hoped was a nonchalant smile and turned towards Lord Shingen's audience chambers without another word.

OoOoOoO

A hot bath and an hour of excruciatingly detailed instruction delivered modestly through a Shoji screen eventually managed to remedy the situation, but by the end of the trial I was nearly as exhausted as my Master. I sat with my back against the bamboo ribbed paper and tried not to think any thoughts about body parts not my own or bathes in general. Yukimura sighed, made a few noises that sounded suspiciously like sobbing, and finished the bath without speaking. By the time he was dressed and sitting beside me, still flushed from the heat of the water and the general awkwardness of…well…everything, I thought I might be a bit hysterical myself.

"That was awful." He said, shutting his eyes.

"This was my fault, Master, I'm sorry." I said, moving to bow low before him in apology.

"I ask too much of you, Sasuke. It is I who am ashamed." He replied.

It felt like my forehead was pressed to the tatami for an age or more while both of us struggled for something to say. Finally, my Master gently hooked a finger under my chin and slowly raised my face to meet his own. He smiled at me a little, brown eyes filled with too many emotions not the least of which was shame, and then stroked a tender thumb down my cheek in a gesture so fond and familiar that it nearly stopped my heart. I knew I should pull away, remind him that such a thing was not only inappropriate but also wholly uncalled for given the nature of my failure, but his hand was so warm. Ninja rarely enjoy such a touch, something so guileless. For us, every breath and movement must have a purpose, but samurai…samurai have such strange reactions.

"Master…" I whispered.

"This is okay Sasuke, it is. This is just how learning usually goes! This is like getting knocked through the wall when I don't understand! It's exactly the same! You are a very good sensei!" He exclaimed.

"Master…I don't really think this is the same." I managed.

"It is, Sasuke. You just don't have much experience teaching. Don't worry. It's just like learning any other thing. The only difference is that this is a lesson in the matter of souls instead of the body alone." Yukimura said, grinning.

"But…" I began to argue.

He placed his thumb against my lips to silence me, his heat and closeness both unnerving and succulent. My Master's hand against my face was somehow far more familiar and electric than even the most erotic caresses of the women I had known. Like most of my kind, I occasionally seduced women for information or reveled with prostitutes when the night was too cold to sleep in the trees. Their love, love bought with coin or a lie, was nothing like the radiant affection in my Master's hand or face. I gasped and swallowed hard, tried to speak, tried to tell him to stop, but it was all worthless in the end. Despite all I knew and every possible logical conclusion I had ever drawn in my life, I leaned into his warmth and allowed myself to be soothed.

So taboo, so utterly wrong and yet gentle and pure in a way no one had ever been with me. There was no impatience or competition, no hasty fumbling or ridiculous protestations of love or lust or whatever the emotion had been in my encounters before. Yukimura merely let the weight of his hand rest against the skin of my face and, despite reason or dignity, I felt my very soul ignite in response. Slowly, but without any kind of hesitation, the Tiger Cub of Kai cradled my face close to his own and brushed his lips against his own thumb, his breath warm against my trembling mouth. I knelt before him, shaking, trying to close my eyes so that I would at least have the pretense of being uncomfortable, but even a lie of the flesh is impossible with Sanada Yukimura. He hadn't even kissed me and already my mind was utterly overwhelmed.

"You're warm Sasuke." He whispered, cocking his head.

"I'm blushing, Master." I said, my brain and mouth moving at odds with one another.

"In shame?"

"Yes…" I lied.

"Oh Sasuke, what do you have to be ashamed of?" He asked, chuckling hotly.

"I…I failed you." I managed closing my eyes at last.

"No Sasuke, I fell down today, but you were there to catch me. You always are." He sighed, lips quirking into a smile against the skin of my cheek.

Some would say that such a thing, such a blatant caress, could never be anything other than a seduction, but I profess that my Master had no clear intentions at all. He was touching me for comfort, because he had been frightened and because I was there to be touched. For him, I suspect it was the same as the times when he was thrown from his horses as a boy and I was there to wipe the dirt from his cheeks. I had bandaged his wounds and sat behind Yukimura, pressed against his back in the saddle, to rest when our given tasks had to be accomplished in kingdoms far away and my feet were tired. Such things were not peculiar for a man who had known a servant since he was a child, something like the way a Lord might consider a beloved hound, and indeed I even slept at his feet when we were in the field. So why should he think that this, a gentle embrace to comfort, was not in some way the same?

No this, this first indiscretion at the very least, it was my own failing I am certain. Perhaps the touch was more intimate, more heated than it had been before, but he was still warm from release and reacting to our conversation as any person would. I was still his friend and he was still my Master and Yukimura really had no one else to hold this way, but I nearly fainted all the same. It was not the first time we had touched and yet the contact was so spectacularly different. To accuse him failing to understand the difference, to expect him to comprehend what such a touch might mean to me was not only unfair, but outright laughable. He had no idea that the innocent press of a hand against my face could be something more than amiable affection or that a kiss against his own hand was a kiss all the same.

"I did not catch you, Master." I whispered.

"This is not warfare, Sasuke. Falling must be different too and catching as well. I am learning." His replied, his soft laughter like a breath of summer wind against my face.

We sat, pressed nearly cheek to cheek, whispering into one another's ears the way I sometimes would with my operatives when enemy ears were close. The feeling, the huddled, chilly awareness of being overheard, had somehow eclipsed the action for me before and blinded me to how utterly terrifying it was. Of course, leaning cheek to cheek with another ninja was not at all the same as being pressed against the bath-warm skin of a samurai who had masturbated for the first time to the sound of my voice.

"You should not touch me this way…" I gasped, trying to look away.

"Am I hurting you?" He asked, backing away, brown eyes wide and startled.

"No, but…" I fumbled, blushing even harder.

"Sasuke, are you ashamed again? You're blushing even more than before…" He noted, raising an eyebrow.

"I…I'm not ashamed…" I said, the terror making the truth jerk it way from my lips.

"Then what does it mean?" He asked, lips less than a breath from my own.

"I…I don't know." I replied, breathing so fast I was seeing stars.

"I blush when Date holds me, is it the same?" He asked gently, voice smooth and purely curious.

"Probably." I breathed, relieved.

He understood why I was so uncomfortable, after all he must since even the press of a maiden's hand against his own was enough to nearly send him into full blown hysteria. I sighed and tried to pull away, thinking I had perhaps escaped, that his hand against my skin would simply fall away. It was foolish of me.

"Does it feel good, then? When I hold you this way?" He whispered, moving closer.

I know I could have lied or explained or done any number of perfectly rational things to save myself from breaking a vow to my clan. Perhaps I might have even spared myself the effort and given him a good shove as I had before. Yukimura was neither stupid nor cruel and he would have understood, both the words and the gesture. Instead, I followed his succulent heat, relaxed into the exotic sincerity of his hands and whimpered, surely half mad:

"Yes."


	2. Chapter 2

**And thus the vicious plot bunny continues to run rampant through my mind and also through your cyber space. Actually, I am slowly getting kind of stuck on this story and I like the way it gives me a little bit more of a venue for poetic and comedic writing. Special thanks to Joe for reading this silly thing at my request and writing such a nice review, it takes a really good real world friend to step into the frightful vortices of my mind. I also want to thank another dear friend from the real world, Arioso Dolente, for both reading and writing a review for my newest internet peculiarity. Your opinion always comes highly valued. To Maejirase, I actually did a little fangirl squeak in class when I saw your review and smiled my way through the rest of the day! I hope this one ends up as good as Peace, but totally different too. Regardless, thanks for the encouragement! To Galactix Knight and Fuku-Sensei, thank you so much for giving me a shot and I hope not to disappoint. To Person and Tacotits (your screen name is hilarious), thank you so much for reading and taking the time to write a review. I was so anxious no one would pick this one up, so thank you for reading and I very much hope you continue to do so! Lastly, thanks to Jennifer J for the wonderful observations, poor Sasuke indeed! Sigh. I torture other people's characters too much… At any rate, enjoy!**

"_Yes." _

I should have taken back that single, damning word. I could have. I could have screamed or laughed or lied and my Master would have released me in an instant with a flowery samurai apology and likely some sort of veiled threat of self-harm. A simple word, a simple _sound_ would have been enough, but I pressed my lips tight together, swallowed against his fingers and tried not to make any noise at all. Recklessness is almost associated with noise, with roaring threats and challenges unsubstantiated by one's ability, with the clatter of shod hooves upon steep terrain. People like Date have a reputation for being reckless, people who speak loudly and like the sound of their own voices, and people like my Master who would ride down a damned titan if it offended him. A sly ninja used to killing for money and feeling nothing is anything but reckless. Reckless gets you killed, bad business by anyone's estimation and I already knew I was doomed, but it was still so strange that my greatest act of unruly disregard should be so utterly silent.

My Master sighed against my flesh, his too-warm body relaxing against my own, comfortable now that any fear of harming me had been assuaged. The sentiment was so stupid that I almost grinned and surely would have if the situation was any less vexing. It was stupid that he should care for me so much, stupid that he was worried about what_ I_ wanted when Kami knew I was more than capable of ruining my own life. In some ways, having Yukimura take me like a trophy and do what he wanted would have been easier. A rape my people can forgive, but a seduction was something else entirely. Giving into a rapist made a ninja human, but allowing a seduction made a ninja weak. I was weak in this, foolish and emotional and probably totally insane, but it was not shame that colored my cheeks or quickened my breath that night. No, there was no shame and no guilt that night, Kami help me.

His free hand moved to trace my eyebrows and the edge of my jaw, leaving tingling heat wherever he touched me. My belly was shaking, the muscles tight with fear and something deeper, something that made my mouth dry and my skin burn. Yukimura leaned closer, watching me with his large, sensitive eyes, breathing in my air as his own. The flutter in my gut spread until my heart was beating against my ribs like a maddened sparrow trapped in a darkened room. My Master touched me, held me like something cherished, fingers learning every detail of my face. I do realize that the idea of myself as anything that could be treasured is ridiculous, even now, but truthfully that was how he made me feel. Ninja do not believe in the value of a person unless it can be proven in gold or skill, but neither my wealth nor my prowess mattered in my Master's estimation. Samurai are not ninja, we do not think about things the same way. If only I had kept that small bit of clarity in all this, the course of events following that night might have been different.

As it was Yukimura traced his fingers from my jaw up to cup my cheek and slowly let the weight of his thumb rest against my lower lip in a blatant suggestion that I open my mouth for him. I hesitated, nervous, uncertain what he would do. I thought perhaps Yukimura might hold me open for a kiss as I had watched Date do with him and the idea startled me a bit. Kissing always seemed so…foreign. So I hesitated, weirdly nervous, caught in his claws. Perhaps such trepidation was uncharacteristic, but I probably would have been even more worried if I had known what he was _actually_ going to do to me. Samurai are so strange. To this day I'm not entirely sure what it meant. All I know now is that my Master did not trust himself to kiss me at first, not when he barely knew how, not when it might be anything less than perfect. However, Date had fostered in him a fascination with a lover's mouth not restricted to barbarian lip play, as I would soon discover.

My thinking was muzzy, softened by his warmth and by my own terror. After several agonized heartbeats, I parted my lips and yielded to him, meeting my Master's eyes as he moved his thumb in against the sensitive inner slickness of my tongue. The action was gentle and very stimulating, always waiting upon my acceptance, but it shocked me all the same. My Master wanted to touch me _inside_ my mouth and that should have been my first clue that nothing about this lesson would be anything like what I had done before. The mouth is such a casual orifice, mundane even. I had never noticed anything particularly erotic or vulnerable about a man's lips, but I trembled like a leaf in the rain as my Master's thumb slid unchallenged past my teeth. He sighed and I closed my eyes tightly, trying hard not to think about the foreign weight of the appendage against my tongue and how compromised it made me feel.

"Oh Sasuke…you're so smooth here, so warm…" He whispered, voice rough with desire.

I was frozen for a moment, the feel of my teeth against his knuckle strange and a little uncomfortable. There was vulnerability in this, both for him and for me, a kind of mutual surrender I had never known before. I flicked my tongue against him nervously, more out of reflex than any real intention, and his breath caught hard enough to make me gasp as well. The texture of his thumb was rough and stimulating against my tongue, very sexual in a way that had nothing to do with softness or femininity. It felt good if…intimate. I had already allowed him too much, done something I would never be forgiven for if anyone knew and the heavy knowledge of it made me bold. I licked him again, feeling the heat build into a low, burning ache in my center.

"Sasuke…Oh! You feel…Kami!" He breathed, blushing.

Recovering from the initial strangeness of it, I sucked him, my limbs gone soft with surrender and my foolish body warm with want despite the fear. I focused on the feel of him, the exotic taste, like sun-warm metal and mineral salt. I ignored everything, but the sensation. I was already damned and if hell was waiting I supposed that there was nothing left to be done than to try and enjoy the trip. Yukimura made a sound half between a groan and a hiss and I opened my eyes to meet his own. Brown portals, like forest pools in the sun, and just as deep filled my vision. My lips tingled and my tongue grew bolder. His fingers moved to cup my jaw, thrusting into my mouth a fraction more and the bare hint of aggression in it made me whimper. I swallowed and my Master gasped softly in surprise, the sound enough to ignite my belly and steal my breath away.

If any other nin had seen us that way, me on my knees before him doing something so blatantly submissive and obviously sexual, I would have been killed. The safety of gold or silver on the floor between us was absent and I had no information to gain by such an act; this could never be considered business. Yukimura pressed his lips to my forehead, kissing the bridge of my nose and the tender skin beneath my eyes, cupping my skull in his hand. The firm, supportive feel of those fingers, fingers that could crush a boulder into pebbles if he so chose, was thrilling. I was aroused, more so than I had ever been in my life, and all from a touch that was both bizarre and taboo. There was no way he could know that my mouth was the only outer aspect of my anatomy that no woman had ever been bold enough to touch more than in passing. I was a virgin for his caresses against my tongue, inexperienced and overwhelmed. My previous lovers were either too passive to engage in such a thing or following specific directions already established by the passage of coins from one party to another. I had never received any of the barbarian kisses Date was so fond of and the idea that putting someone else's fingers into my mouth might be erotic had, frankly, never crossed my mind.

"Is it good? Do you like this?" Yukimura asked, lips ghosting over my cheek.

Only Yukimura would bother asking someone a question with his thumb halfway down their throat. I nearly rolled my eyes. I could not answer him of course, not with words, but the tender way he stroked me made me soften my mouth for him all the same. My Master's smile against my face was so guileless and happy that I swear my heart stopped for a moment. He kissed my cheek, lips surprisingly soft, and slowly withdrew his thumb from my mouth, smearing the moisture there over my lips. The roughness of his callouses was startling against the thin skin, stimulating. I bit back a moan as Yukimura carded his other hand through my hair, his fingers against my scalp strong and shockingly pleasurable. He moved to take away the steel guard I wore around my face, touching skin usually covered in armor and sensitive with neglect.

"Master…" I whispered, the memory of him still rough and salty against my lips.

"You're beautiful, Sasuke, tiny and beautiful…" My Master whispered, moaning as I tipped my head back into his grasp.

If there were any doubt that I was not in my right mind, _that_ should have firmly dispelled it. Any other lover who dared to refer to me as _tiny_, would have been ejected from my presence far more abruptly and not gently either, likely with violence and something important being broken. As it was, the sound of his voice alone was enough to send a deep shiver through my spine and the words barely mattered. With my Master I could not take offense to the odd things he said. To Yukimura I actually _was_ tiny in a strange kind of way and the comment was merely a matter of perspective.

He saw me as small because I perched on his shoulders for leverage when we fought or on his horses for rest when we rode, even if we were nearly the same height, even if I was his senior in everything. Perhaps then it was not so much a statement of size as of proportionality. If I wanted to, I could have stood on the palm of his hand and he could have held me up as easily as one would a lantern on a nighttime stroll. My Master was infinitely stronger than I was, stronger than any human being really should be, and his body was built thickly with muscle honed for wielding heavy weaponry. My slender frame, agile and sinewy after lifetime of running and climbing must have indeed seemed petite in comparison.

"I…I'm not…That's ridiculous!" I whispered, lips still tingling from his caresses.

"I want it to be good, Sasuke. Tell me what you want…" Yukimura murmured, moving closer.

"I am not of your station, we can't…this…I… it isn't proper." I protested weakly.

"Proper?" He chuckled.

"I don't deserve…" I began, hoping for obfuscation instead of the truth.

"Don't be foolish, of course you deserve to be happy!" He replied fiercely, moving closer to cage me further in his arms.

I was not necessarily talking about happiness, more about propriety, but there was no way he could know that. Lying always works poorly with samurai in my experience, but of course I continue to try it anyway because I like to confound my own logic. Yukimura gripped my hair gently, controlling the movement of my head as he pulled me closer, pressing me to the exposed skin of his own throat. I leaned into the embrace with wordless surrender and my Master pulled me up against his chest, lifting me as easily as one would any other pet. Still holding my hair, he arched my body backwards, kissing my throat and forcing my hips to rest fully against his own. I gasped, surprised, and struggled a little. No one had ever held me this way, but I was fully caught and there was nothing to do but bend for him, bend and open my body to his touch.

The delicious heat of his lips, of his teeth, against my throat was scalding. He nipped and licked me, worrying the vulnerable skin delicately with his mouth in a way that was both careful and faintly aggressive. The thundering pleasure the action brought arched through my body like summer lightning, searing me. I was practically sitting in his lap, straddling one of his thighs, the armor I wore the only barrier between my skin and the cultured smoothness of his yukata. Even that, even the comfort of armor, would not protect me for long. The metallic click of the catches on my steel-girded gloves being released was like a warning sound, too close to that of a sword being loosened in its scabbard, and I tensed. He pulled my glove away, licking my fingers enticingly, and I nearly sprang from his lap in shock.

"Master…" I protested, trying uselessly to push him away.

"So much armor, Sasuke! It's amazing you can move so swiftly with all this. As if anyone could catch you in the first place…" Yukimura chuckled.

"I'm rather caught _now_." I muttered, annoyed.

"Should I release you, deadly kestrel? Are you so eager to fly?" He purred, nipping the fleshy rise of at the base of my thumb.

Of course, being the idiot that I am, I yelped at the touch and _said_ absolutely nothing. He flicked the catches on my other glove open and my body jerked at the noise, jumping against him like a deer caught in the jaws of a wolf, even as he bent my shoulders back over his lap. I stretched for him wordlessly, arching my body like a drawn bow, belly open and exposed before him. My Master nuzzled his nose against mine, our lips almost brushing, and continued to remove my armor with positively uncanny efficiency. I had hoped my steel shell might buy me a little bit of time to come back to my damn senses, but the armor just seemed to fall away, leaving me bare, vulnerable in his arms. He undid the ties and clasps one-handed, so smoothly that only the coolness of new air against covered skin alerted me that my convenient mode of separation was quickly slipping away. That a man may know best how to undress another had, quite honestly, not been something I considered. If the thought had managed to cross my mind, perhaps I would have taken his invitation to fly while I still had the chance a bit more seriously. As it was, I barely realized it was happening, that my Master was undressing me, until his fingers were brushing against the armored jock guard I wore beneath my trousers, a piece of hear he was unfamiliar with.

"Hmmm, Sasuke…You're harder than I thought." He quipped, tapping a knuckle against the steel cup.

"I…It…Oh no…" I gasped.

"Shhh, just tell me how to take it off…" He whispered.

There was the slow slide of his hand along my spine, the taboo press of my Master's cheek against mine and the quiet gnawing terror that I had gone too far, too far to ever return. I sat against him for an infinite moment, trying to call up enough air to tell him that he was completely out of his mind and that we should stop right now and go back to doing…well, not what we had been doing _before_, but something else. Maybe play mahjong or contemplate poetry, something that would not feel so good or get one of us killed if anyone saw. He could not want me, not if he knew what it would mean, not if he knew that he could never keep me the way he did Date. Instead of using his hesitance to dive away and out the nearest window, like any sane ninja in the universe, I reached behind my waist to the leather straps holding the cup in place and pulled them loose.

Yukimura held his breath as the armor fell away and I bared myself for him, gave him my last surrender. For a moment we were still, breathing, close and feeling, not thinking. Then his hand moved against my intimate body, stroking me tentatively with only the cloth between us, fingers strong and curious on my vulnerable flesh. I gasped, eyes widening, shocked by the intensity of the feeling. Pleasure, like fire or driving rain, like nothing I had ever felt before moved through me and settled like a ball of molten metal in my belly. His hand played over the sensitive flesh, firm but un-threatening, and the fabric of my trousers was suddenly decidedly more abrasive and uncomfortable than it had ever been before. I was not inexperienced, but my Master's touch was so different, _intentional_ in a way no lover from my past had ever managed, and I found myself moaning breathlessly for him as he cupped me through the cloth.

"Oh Sasuke…so hot, so hard…" Yukimura panted, fingers rubbing maddeningly between my legs.

"Master…Don't say such things…Ahh!" I stifled the noise into my hand, but the sound of it was shocking anyway.

"It feels good?" He asked softly, mouthing my ear.

"Kami…" I hissed under my breath, biting my lip so that I might manage to keep quiet.

"Don't be frightened…" My Master whispered, "I'll be careful, I won't hurt you."

"I know." I whispered, barely a sound at all, talking mostly to myself.

How strange, I thought, to be held so delicately and made to feel small by Yukimura, a Samurai Lord almost a decade younger and infinitely more sheltered than myself. I had thought of him before almost like the cub of his namesake, someone I could shelter and protect. After all, how could I think of him as anything except a child when I had known him as a boy? When I came to the kingdom of Kai in the service of Lord Shingen I was sixteen, already a man in my own right by the reckoning of my people, while Yukimura was only seven. It was hard to reconcile the boy who had cut himself on my kunai and broken his ankle trying to climb a tree after me with the man now before me, a man looking at me with lust and not a small amount of affectionate aggression. My Master, for all his inexperience, was still confident and powerful as any tiger, whether of Kai or otherwise. He made me feel as tiny as his words proclaimed me to be, like prey in the talons of a predator, and all with nothing more than a look and the touch of his hands.

Yukimura slowly allowed my body to drape down over his lap, stretching me back over his knees until my shoulders were fully resting on the tatami and my hips high, spread almost painfully over his thigh. He was breathing a little faster, but not with the same mixture of anticipation and panic that quickened my own helpless lungs. For him, there was only passion, the heat of it in his hands and in the way his pupils were swallowing the golden-brown into molten darkness. He held me, he touched me, and while some have accused me of falling, the truth is that I _dove_ into his love. I moaned when he stroked me, bit gouges into my own hand in an effort to remain silent, writhing against the clever teasing of his fingers. My clothing fell away, like the petals from a wilting flower, and I shivered a little despite the heat practically radiating from my Master's blushing skin.

"Oh, your body is beautiful." He breathed, stroking an appreciative hand down my chest and lower to play along the edge of my trousers.

"Not really…" I hedged.

"You always say modesty is stupid." He noted with a smirk.

"I…It's not modesty, Master! Men aren't beautiful! They're just...well…stop _saying _it!" I hissed wondering if my face might actually ignite.

"But Sasuke you _are_, you're gorgeous, as lovely as the moon…" He said in an awed whisper, expression almost thoughtful and the ghosting touch of his calloused fingers over my nipples thrilling if very nearly ticklish.

"The moon is scarred, so am I…" I replied, closing my eyes and turning away.

"Your scars make you beautiful to me, I want to see more…" He practically purred, bending low over his own knees to undo the ties of my pants with his teeth like the tiger he was.

I whimpered a bit, the warmth of him almost like that of a fire, radiant and consuming. It was death, death if I allowed this, but I had gone too far already. There was no use fighting him or myself and so I lay helpless in his jaws. I did not thwart him, not even offering a token of resistance as he opened the cloth to touch intimate skin for the first time. I gasped, shaking. Pleasure arched through my body, pleasure beyond any kind that reason should allow. Yukimura's hands were roughened, made hard with callouses from his training and scars from his battles. Hands such as his had no right to still be so sensitive, to touch with such purpose and delicacy, to move so enticingly!

He touched me and my very chakra burned with ecstasy. I set my teeth into my hand and listened to the thunder of my own blood in my ears, moving in waves, cresting and breaking like a storm on the ocean with every stroke of his fingers. Yukimura was dense when it came to people, but he was an eager student and he had listened to me in the bath when touching his own body. More importantly he _remembered_ everything that I had told him to do. Soon, I could barely remember anything except the brush of his hand and the molten way his touch made my frantic pulse race.

"Like this? Is it right…?" he asked.

"Nghh…" I moaned, too invested in not screaming and already muzzled by my own fingers to answer him properly.

He held me, caressing the rigid length of my penis from root to crown just as I had taught him, blistering pleasure spearing through me with every stroke. I wondered if it was possible to die from overstimulation. His lips were warm on my belly and my Master's hand was busy against the aching length below, cupping me and rubbing more firmly than any courtesan had ever _dared, _confident and bold as he was in everything. My Master slid his thumb smoothly over the slit of my shaft, collecting the warm moisture there and smearing it over the tingling skin of my erection, increasing his pace slightly. I shrieked, bucking up into his embrace, startled by the white hot intensity of the feeling. If I had any inkling of just how explosive such a touch would feel, I would certainly have chosen to teach him something else, something that he would not be tempted to use against me. Perhaps it was not the touch, shockingly erotic as it was, but merely that he was the one performing the action.

Sex loses something when performed alone, clutching a tree branch, between one endless slog towards certain death and another. It feels different when being used as a way to relieve stress, something I already knew, especially if it happens to be in the damp cold of the empty forest in the dead of night. Being with another person felt better and any idiot, other than Yukimura obviously, could have realized that. The difference, the shock, was not that I was having a mild sexual encounter with another person, but that _that_ person's very presence seemed to set me upon a razor's edge of control. I was not in the habit of letting my guard slip in bed or anywhere else and yet I must confess that Yukimura might have pulled a blade from his belt, twirled it slowly in front of my face, and proceeded to lazily cut my throat. He could have done that, he could have done anything, and I would have been _helpless_. He moved me, touched me, and my wits melted. What I did alone for my own release was magnified in Yukimura's hands, made a thousand times more powerful and shattering, stealing the very thoughts from my fevered brain.

"Erghh…Master…Stop…" I pleaded, hissing around the bleeding flesh of my own hand.

"Why? You're close…" He whispered, cupping my testicles as he used his other hand to pleasure me.

"Ahhh!…Too close…Too close…" I whimpered, nails scrabbling on the tatami beneath us.

"Good." He purred against my navel.

"Master no…don't…"

He nipped my hip and pretended not to hear me; belligerent little ass. It was impossible to explain and I wasn't sure myself what the true sentiment behind the request was. I did not want him to bring me to orgasm, even if I had allowed him to undress me and lay me over his lap in a way even the most wanton whore would never allow. I wanted that last ounce of control even if every touch of his clever fingers made me tremble in the marrow of my very bones. Truly, any sense I had was totally gone, but if I came for him, in his fucking _hands_…Kami. Something irretrievable would be lost between us, some final barrier. At least in my own mind, the vulnerability of doing something like this with him was no less than absolutely terrifying and I was supposed to be _his_ damn sensei! Most sensei frighten and press their students, not the other way around, and in that moment I finally understood Lord Shingen's habit of knocking him through walls. Anything less was barely sufficient against the force of stubborn will that was Sanada Yukimura.

Of course, ejaculation has nothing to do with love and I knew that and tried to convince myself that all the frantic worrying was really for nothing. Unfortunately, one act when paired with the other is nothing less than absolutely intoxicating and I think I was already addicted to him. I hissed and nudged him half-heartedly with my foot, but I was far too close to the precipice to make anything like a level headed argument or decent attempt at escape. Bull-headed as always, my Master chose to ignore my ravings and increased both his pressure and his pace until I was practically writhing out of his grasp. My belly tightened and the heavy heat intensified, building low and aching in my groin. Another stubborn flick of his thumb over the crown of my foolish cock and I came, hot tears spilling from my eyes like a scared virgin, bucking against him in ecstasy.

"Oh yes…oh yes…" He moaned, cupping me as my body contracted and spilled my seed over his waiting fingers.

"Oh no…Oh no…" I chanted, when I wasn't gasping, dizzy.

My body burned, muscles bunching into taught cords as I came for him, arching up almost painfully and without any conscious control at all. He stroked me softly, milking the sensitized flesh just as I had taught him, face flushed with desire and eyes firm with concentration. One side of his kimono had fallen down, baring the muscular rise of my Master's shoulder, and I watched the muscle ripple as his hand moved against me. Yukimura touched me until my flesh lay heavy and spent over his knees and my breathing began to slow. My limbs were still caught up in my clothes, the tatami cool and strange against my bare feet though I had no memory of when he had removed my socks.

For a moment I merely lay where I was, staring up at the ceiling without blinking, studying the wood panels with something close to paranoid fascination. My mind was a perfect blank, an empty pool in which all the fish had suddenly and inexplicably died. Yukimura sat up and studied his hand almost analytically before licking the cooling semen from his fingers like a damned cat might spilt cream. I watched him and felt a strange combination of nausea and elation, watched him grin like a siren at the taste, watched his golden brown eyes sparkle with fire. For some reason my mind instantly returned to the last courtesan I had bought and how badly she blushed when I licked my hand after fingering her. The poor girl's eyes had been huge with embarrassment and she looked so damn uncomfortable. It was horribly cute and so of course I had laughed at her. Karma is cruel. Poor little slut had been sadly underpaid. The sentiment was decidedly not as funny on the other side of the situation, I discovered. Actually watching my Master drink my cum was very much akin to the feeling one has after having the breath knocked out of their body during sparring.

Yukimura did not laugh, thank the merciless gods, or one of us would have died. He just licked and watched me, expression warm and fond, reddened lips moist and almost hungry. My Master was far more considerate than I might have been, quietly patient while I lay beneath his hands and studied the unbelievable feeling of the tears drying on my skin. Truly, his behavior was nothing less than a tribute to the ideal of samurai honor, but the moment left me flushed and speechless nonetheless. There was no mirth or cruelty, but even then I knew that the proprietary heat in my Master's eyes was dangerous and I could not help feel that he had taken something from me with that clever tongue of his.

So I breathed and swallowed, panicking silently, the metallic taste of my own blood still dripping from my hand sharp and alarming in my mouth. He smiled at me, tongue still wrapped obscenely around his own fingers, and somehow the expression held only affection and a triumphant kind of satisfaction. Of course, since samurai don't do things like molesting their ninja with any kind of malicious intentions, but all that somehow only served to make me feel worse. This was weakness, this was my _own_ mistake and I should have just fled, but I lay like one paralyzed. I watched him and trembled, the singing heat still ricocheting through my flesh, held motionless as surely as if he had tethered me to his wrist like a tame hawk. Carefully, because I probably looked like I might just cease breathing at any moment, Yukimura lapped the pearly fluid from my belly and pressed a lingering kissed to my navel. My Master then pulled my clothing into some semblance of order over my catatonic flesh and lay down beside me with a soporific little sigh, holding me as a child might a toy. I loved him then, Kami help me.

OoOoOoO

The wind moved lazily through the treetops, stirring the glossy pines into soft waves of roiling green for as far as the eye could see, moving in waves like the endless rhythm of the summer ocean. The day was unseasonably warm and the weather fair, morning sunlight dappling through the forest below to form balmy pools of glittering light. Birds sang, squirrels fussed and far to the east a vixen was chastising her kits. The forest could not have been more sublime, more peaceful, four days following the last lesson I had given my Master in the carnal arts. So, of course, I found myself standing, perched at the very top the tallest tree in the area as was my habit, panicking silently and considering the merits of ritual suicide.

I had been carefully avoiding the castle, finding one insubstantial reason after another to try to evade Yukimura so that I could at least be murdered in peace if any of my brethren decided to punish me. Unfortunately, winter was almost upon us and I had exhausted every fathomable excuse to circumvent my Master's summons. My own operatives had returned to Kai and settled in already, leaving the forest weirdly empty of my people, a sure sign that the snows were near. After four measly days of practically strolling from one area to another on errands that could have easily waited until spring, the work was all done and I was at a loss. The business of spies grinds to a near halt as the weather cools and, already, I had completed every mission and task currently assigned as well as fruitlessly begging Lord Shingen for more work, which simply didn't exist.

Sensing my anxiety, Shingen sent me to bring a few meaningless tidings to Date in Oshu, which took less than a day to do even while dawdling and only reminded me more firmly that I was as good as dead in my own skin. Not that Date was unhappy to receive me by any means, quite the opposite, and even invited me to stay the night. For all Yukimura's youthful enthusiasm, it turned out that the Dragon was equally enamored in his own fashion and hungry for information about his lover. While his excitement made the chore mercifully longer, it was also profoundly more annoying and did nothing to soothe the churning panic in my guts even if Date did keep me out of Yukimura's clutches a few hours longer.

I arrived in Oshu in the late morning, stopped for a nap that irked my subordinates, and then meandered over to the castle knowing that the errand upon which I was sent would barely take ten minutes to complete. In that, at least I was mistaken. The Dragon accepted Shingen's news with a yawn in his usual fashion, waved his subordinates away, and then proceeded to pester me for all sorts of improper information about Yukimura for almost three hours. Date would have probably kept me longer too, all bloody night, since I was unhappily well equipped to satisfy his curiosity. The thought of staying up all night with Date masamune discussing I what position my Master slept in and whether or not he screamed Date's name when he masturbated was nearly enough to make me long for the death lurking for me in the forest. What was worse was the not matter how bizarre Date's questions, I actually _did_ know the answers and lying is much harder when faced with a samurai king who never takes ignorance for an excuse.

Needless to say, I have been more comfortable informing warlords that everyone they know has just _died_ than I was divulging intimate details of his lover's private habits into Date's delighted ears. At least the Dragon had not seemed suspicious about my recent fall from professionalism, which was a bonus, sort of, except that I had the nagging impression that he knew _anyway_ and _didn't mind_, which was simply too peculiar to contemplate. The entire encounter became totally unbearable far before sundown, but every second of conversation felt as though it was being taken out of my very skin with a braided flail. As overjoyed as Date was with my infiltrative skill, the experience made me feel mostly like vomiting from sheer stress and I nearly killed one of my own operatives who had the misfortune of tapping me on the shoulder afterwards. Even worse, Date and his sexual snooping was my last task for the winter.

There was nothing left to do, nothing! No way left to simply outrun my indiscretions. Some people might have cried, but I had forgotten how to do so many years ago and so I merely stood high above the world, bathing in the wind and doing nothing. I could go home, to Kai, and surrender myself to the carnal appetites of a guileless teenager who could move mountains and crush boulders when he was frustrated or travel to my village for my own speedy execution. At the time, both options had considerable appeal. Despite how much I loathed myself for it, I wanted my Master to touch me again and I certainly did not want to break my promise to teach him…well…something at least. Shameless fleeing also seemed rather appropriate and my clan might forgive a one-time transgression, maybe, if I managed to be convincing and the elders were suitably intoxicated. It was also possible that they did not know, that I could just break my contract with Kai and go on about my life…It was possible, it was, but even I knew such luck was unlikely if not plain miraculous.

There was no way to know for sure and the thought of never seeing Yukimura again was very nearly enough to re-teach my numbed eyes how to cry real tears somewhere other than my Master's bed. Twelve years, twelve years I had been with him, and to just leave knowing he would surely blame himself...It made my breathe hitch ominously. As for my young Master, I shuddered to think of what he might do to the local landscape, to the country as a whole, if I just left one day and _never_ came back. My clan has no fear of a samurai's wrath, but Yukimura's moods are NOT something to be trifled with.

So I stood, stuck on the very border of Kai, wondering which of my options (returning to my Master's arms or simply leaping from the damned tree to my death) would be less painful and expedient. I was so lost in thought, dazed really, that I never even heard Kasuga approach until she was sitting in the limbs beneath me and twirling a kunai cheekily through her fingers. I scowled.

"Sloppy, Sarutobi, that isn't like you." She smirked.

"Go away."

"Humph, perhaps I should punish you for this carelessness." She teased.

"Kill me then." I hissed, my tone far colder than I had ever used with her before.

Kasuga froze, blinking at me with her gigantic brown eyes, the woman's lovely, doll-like face a mask of shock. Any other nin might have shrugged and gone about their way or stuck a knife in my neck as reprehension for rudeness, but she merely sat, silent and watching. For a while, time passed and I bathed in the wind without thinking anything particularly cognizant. When she spoke, it was almost a shock and I might have jumped if my mind was not so utterly fixed on my own unfolding ruin.

"You're not a man so easily vexed, what troubles you?" She asked gently.

"I don't want to talk."

"Has the Dragon harmed you in some way? He is a well-meaning boy most of the time, but he can be incredibly uncouth…"

"No, no, it's nothing to do with Date…Or it is…It's complicated…" I sighed, buckling a little.

"How so?" She asked.

At that moment the sound of a horse in heavy armor crashing through the underbrush came thundering through the forest and I almost groaned aloud. The racket was so loud that Kasuga actually jumped a little, eyes gone wide with shock as the trees a bit to the west began shaking. We were deep in the forest, far from any recognizable path. No, there was no way I could possibly be so unbelievably cursed. Yukimura hardly even knew the path through the trees that the ninja took to Oshu and after all it had only been four days, surely not enough time for him to miss me…

"SASUKE?! Are you HERE?!" Yukimura shouted from the ground, obviously looking for me.

"Shit." I said quietly. Kasuga raised an eyebrow.

"SASUKE!? All the other ninja have returned! Where ARE you?!" Yukimura called, sounding minutely worried.

"Complicated, ne? Are you fighting with him?" She asked, gesturing to the ground many yards below us where my Master was currently fighting his way through the underbrush with his singular brand of bullheaded ferocity.

"No. Not fighting." I snarled, feeling sick.

"I didn't think someone could bring a horse through there…" She mused.

"No one with any sense would." I snapped softly.

"SASUKE!"

"Well, he seems to be handling it fairly well." Kasuga noted charitably, wincing only a little as the poor beast gave out a particularly pitiable whinny.

"SASUKE! Are you OKAY?!" Yukimura yelled and a fine old spruce quivered and fell to the ground.

My Master was pushing his way through the forest like some kind of mountain troll, shoving trees aside from horseback if he could not get around them. He was still several yards away, but doubtlessly coming closer and brining a path of destruction with him. Yukimura was making progress along a route any sane person would have dubbed impassable and he was doing it on a _horse_. Suddenly my rather limited options of anonymous escape seemed much less feasible. Kasuga's eyes widened. The trees shook as if in a terrible wind and the small creatures of the forest raced up and over our feet, fleeing as they would from a forest fire, not that I blamed them. Yukimura was easily as big a disaster as any mere natural catastrophe. The horse gave out a shrill sound that might have been a war cry as my Master crashed against the veritable wall of underbrush once again. The poor thing probably thought it was in the middle of a battle.

"It seems you have been missed." Kasuga noted as Yukimura snarled from the ground and another tree fell.

"Are you sure you won't just kill me?" I asked with a sigh.

"SASUKE!" Yukimura called.

"What is going on? You've never even said ill of him and now…Has your master hurt you in some way?" Kasuga asked, looking worried.

"No, he would never hurt me." I laughed bitterly.

"Then why are you hiding up here and letting him tear the forest to pieces?" She asked, scowling.

"SASUKE!"

"What does it matter?" I whispered, closing my eyes.

"You are being very odd today, Sarutobi." She grumbled accusingly.

"It is a very odd day."

"SASUKE! If you're angry at me, won't you at least come OUT and tell me why?!" Yukimura called.

"Why avoid him? You're being cruel! He's obviously worried about you…" Kasuga huffed tartly.

"He should be." I said, clenching my shaking hands into fists, "I'm dead already."

"SASUKE! PLEASE tell me at least that you're OKAY!"

"Dead? What do you mean dead?" Kasuga scoffed, glaring up at me through the boughs.

"Dead as you are dead." I whispered at last, moving low to crouch on the tree top and still my knees from shaking.

Most people think that Kasuga is stupid, but that is not true at all. Kasuga understands subtlety in a way other nin never will and she always thinks carefully before speaking, a talent many of our elders have yet to master. She understood immediately the implication of what I was saying and her eyes widened huge and round with shock. She looked to where Yukimura was still trying to bludgeon his way through the forest and back to me, cocking her head strangely. I met her eyes and nodded, almost imperceptibly, but she caught the meaning and blushed hotly anyway. The woman cursed a little, almost to herself, before swallowing hard and fixing her eyes back to the horizon.

"It…Is it complicated…in the same way that it is with me and Kenshin?" She asked at last, voice tight.

"Not yet, but it will be if I return to him." I managed, the tears rough in my voice if not in my eyes.

"SASUKE!"

"And if you don't return?" Kasuga offered softly.

"I might live." I replied, smiling bitterly.

"Do you love him?" She asked gently.

"I…I think I may."

"SASUKE! PLEASE!"

"Kami! I…I'm so sorry!" She gasped, placing a hand delicately over her lips.

"Are you? Are you sorry then for loving Kenshin?" I asked nastily, my own fear making me cruel.

"Sometimes." She acceded.

"SASUKE!"

"I don't want your pity." I snarled, turning away.

"You won't have anyone else's." She said evenly, "You will be in the place that eyes do not see if your clan finds out you are sharing his bed."

"SASUKE! Where ARE you!?"

"I'll be in hell. They're going to kill me for this." I snorted, a bit hysterical.

"Perhaps not. Yukimura is a young lord, but everyone knows of his power and he _is_ Shingen's only heir. Not someone the Shinobi would choose to offend lightly, certainly not for the sake of your measly hide. After all, _I _managed to survive." Kasuga offered kindly.

"It isn't the same." I hissed.

"No?"

"It's worse."

"SASUKE!" Yukimura howled and another tree fell.

"I know better than anyone else what it is to love a Samurai." She sighed patiently, "I know what it costs."

"This is different, Kasuga. There is no way that my clan will let it go unpunished." I argued.

"No, but banishment is not as bad as you might think. Especially if it…if it is as you say…" Kasuga replied kindly, blushing again.

"They aren't going to banish me." I countered darkly.

"Sasuke…"

"At least you are a woman. Women are_ supposed_ to be weak. I have no excuse!" I snapped, interrupting her.

"In this, everyone is weak." She said, smiling sadly.

We sat, listening to my Master tear the forest into kindling around us, and Kasuga was silent for a very long time. I had badly misjudged her. All ninja thought of Kasuga as an emotional fool, a weakling female who fell in love with a mark, but there she sat beside me in gentle quiet when she had every right and opportunity to stick a kunai directly into my neck. Our people had slandered her so badly, made her into a kind of fable for the others, and I felt ashamed to have ever believed it. She was stronger than any of us. Strong enough to withstand years of isolation and ridicule and still have enough kindness left over to share with me. I felt like screaming, but bit my lips, caging the sound within. Yes, Kasuga lived in a way, as a beloved pet of Lord Kenshin, but that was hardly any life at all and for me even the promise of a golden cage seemed unlikely. A kunoichi loving a man instead of killing him was stupid, laughable, but a male ninja loving a man for any reason was downright _deviant_.

"You suffer and yet you stay with him." I said at last.

"Yes. I suffer, but all life is suffering in one way or another. My loneliness hurts, but it is nothing compared to trying to live without him. In his arms I am happy and I would rather be a happy outcast than living among our people without his love." She replied.

"SASUKE! PLEASE!" Yukimura railed.

"You sound so certain." I mused

"There is no one like Kenshin." She said and her voice was solid and true, filled with the kind of devotion normal people reserved for their gods.

Maybe it was true, maybe her Samurai lover really was as perfect as Kasuga hoped, but that didn't mean anything when it came to my own dilemma. My Master was a very good person and I loved him, but he did not actually know anything about me or my people. Even if he did, I could never be with him the way Date would and it would have been stupid to even try. I was not a Samurai and so he could only keep me, if even that, until my people came to kill me for reasons that he wouldn't even understand. The best I could hope would be to live as his pet until one or both of us died.

"What should I do?" I asked softly, feeling the tremors of Yukimura's approach in the bark beneath my feet.

"What is worse Sarutobi? Do you prefer death or a life in which you will never see him again?" She said, shrugging as if we were just talking about the weather.

"SASUKE! PLEASE! Are you even HERE?!" Yukimura bellowed, sounding more desperate than before.

"I may be dead already."

"And a single offense may be forgiven. The question is: Is the chance worth it? Was your life worth living before you met him?" Kasuga whispered as the first flash of red showed through the trees beneath us.

"I don't even remember what life was like before I met him." I confessed in a panicked whisper.

"Only you can know this, Sarutobi." Kasuga said at last.

She smiled, kindly, and then vanished off into the forest like an ether. I thought about her for a moment, probably running with every ounce of strength she had back to Kenshin, back to her master's hand. I thought about myself too, about what it would be like to serve someone other than Kai and about what my future would be like if I stayed with my young master. I tried to imagine a life in which Yukimura was just a person, just someone I had once worked with.

"SASUKE! Come BACK!" Yukimura cried, his voice booming through the forest.

I swear that I had meant to consider it, that I was planning to think well and hard about the best and most strategic course of action, but my body was already moving. Before I could stop myself, before one heartbeat even managed to catch up with the next, I was flipping through the trees towards my Master's voice. I dove like an otter into a pond, from my perch and down towards him without even a thought to slow my actions. The bells on his horse's saddle were loud in my ears and piercing in the forest like the purest sunlight is in a room full of shadows. I could see him, a glimmer of red brighter even than a cardinal's wing through the dark boughs of my home, calling for me. There might have been time to stop, to escape, but I was already running with everything I had, everything I _was_, back into his arms.

Samurai are unrealistic, idealistic, poetic idiots who have never known a day of hunger in their lives and yet glory in pain for the sheer intensity of it. They kill one another and then stand there like simpletons weeping over their fallen enemy's grave, convinced that only a person a man has fought with can know him completely. They believe, foolishly, that by killing a rival they have somehow proven a kind of devotion to the person and so murder is almost the same as an act of love. Samurai can almost always be trusted to take something like touch, even _intimate_ touch, totally for granted and yet fly into a noble panic at the mere insinuation of indecency. Touch and indecency are separate for them, unrelated, but in my mind the two were really rather quite interchangeable. That touch should be lewd by its very nature, that physical contact existed only to serve ulterior motives, was grounded firmly in my mind as fact. How Yukimura could hold me and kiss me and brand himself onto my body and still have the audacity to do so believing that my opinion actually mattered is not something my people understand. Before my Master held me that, night touch was just another way to get what I wanted and the shock of realizing that Yukimura actually only wanted to pleasure _me_ was my second lesson in all this. The first lesson of course being that leaving any part of my Master's education to chance was an invitation to magnificent disaster.


End file.
